If you play the film from Hummel's perspective then it's the story of a classic Tragic Hero.

Did Hummel say My God, What Have I Done? because he trusted Frye and Darrow or because he broke his moral code by killing Crisp?

Complete Monster: Captains Frye and Darrow attempt to extort money by threatening San Francisco with Deadly Gas. While their superiorAnti-VillainGeneral Hummel wants to distribute the money to families of soldiers whose deaths went unrecognized and without compensation, they only want it for themselves. When it becomes apparent Hummel is bluffing, they act swift to remove Hummel from command and eventually kill him while proceeding with the attack. Even when it becomes apparent they've lost, Frye and Darrow try to send a rocket at the city armed with poison gas to kill every civilian they possibly can and attempt to kill the 81 tourists they have locked in Alcatraz to ensure a lack of witnesses. Their whole motivation for this is as Darrow sums up himself: "I want my FUCKING! MONEY!"

Moral Event Horizon: When Frye and Darrow provoke a gunfight with the Navy SEALs in the shower room and wipe them all out in the process.

And in case you thought they did it by accident (although they enjoyed it), there is the scene later on when they decide to carry on with the missile attack after Hummel decides to call it off (revealing that he was bluffing all along). As put by Darrow, they are mercenaries now, so if they want to get paid, they need to make sure the government sees that they weren't weak.

Goodspeed: "IT! WAS! CLASSIFIED!" As well as "What do you say we cut the chit-chat, A-HOLE?!"

The deadly poison is bright green and kept in glass balls the size of ping-pong balls. There's a reason for that related to their dispersal, but it's hard to take something so goddamn pretty that seriously.

Nightmare Fuel: One of Hummel's men falling victim to the VX gas during the raid. Seeing his genuine panic as his body begins to boil is pretty unnerving, as is the fact that his fellow marines can do nothing for him.

"Seventy. Seventy thousand dead. A drop of VX hits the floor is lethal up to a hundred feet. One teaspoon of this shit detonated on the atmosphere will kill every living thing within an 8 block radius. Get the point?"

TucoSalamanca was once a Marine sergeant who was skilled with motion sensors. He still knows when something isn't right.

Rooting for the Empire: Hummel is incredibly easy to root for. He only uses violent force when he absolutely has to, takes no joy in the methods he's been forced to use, is fighting for an unequivocally righteous cause (getting financial aid for the surviving families of subordinates who died under his command while on black ops missions the government has disavowed) and ultimately reveals he was never planning to launch the rockets anyway and even aids the heroes in disabling them in his dying moments.

Squick: After Mason drops an entire AC unit on his head, one of the soldier's feet is still twitching as they disarm the first rocket. Goodspeed is greatly unnerved by this.

So Cool, It's Awesome: As mentioned above, it's considered to be Michael Bay's best movie, and it even has Sean Connery in the movie, as well as getting a "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. There's something of a 'hey, it's that famously idiosyncratic actor' value as well - Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery both starring.

Play Call of Duty: Black Ops and substitute "Hummel" every time someone talks to "Hudson." The character (voiced by Ed Harris), is so close to Vietnam-era Hummel that it might as well be a prequel. It even includes a plot to attack the United States with horrible, face-melting green gas and a character named Mason learning the truth about the JFK Assassination. It's worth noting that Black Ops was released right after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which included several blatant homages to this movie. note The first part of the Gulag level, where Task Force 141 storms the Gulag by blowing open a wall in the shower room, is an almost exact recreation of the shower room shootout in Alcatraz, to break out a beanie wearing crusty old sea captain in Price who looks and acts much like Mason would; likewise, the climax of the Washington D.C. level, where Ramirez has to rush to the roof of the White House with flares to stop a squadron of fighter planes from bombing it, is a recreation of the climax of The Rock where Goodspeed does the same thing on the roof of Alcatraz.

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